This page is dedicated to Amateur Radio, what
it has been, what it is now, and most importantly, what it could
be in the future. Amateur Radio has a long and proud history
dating back to the turn of the 20th Century, when experimenters
tinkered with primitive spark gap Morse Code transmitters and
receivers. In those early days, amateurs were at the leading edge
of radio technology, pioneering developments such as
international H.F. transmissions and SSB (single sideband). In
additions, amateurs have traditionally been called on to provide
emergency communications in times of disaster, right up to the
present day, offering their communication skills and equipment
for public service. An excellent book on the early days of
Amateur Radio is Two Hundred Meters and Down, which describes the early decades of the hobby and the
rapid technical progress made by radio amateurs during this
period.

Today, Amateur Radio is a diverse hobby with
many facets. As an amateur, one can work overseas stations on the
H.F. bands (known as DX'ing), participate in contests, chat with
amateur friends over the local VHF or UHF repeaters, build their
own radios, antennas and accessories; communicate via orbiting
satellites, try their hand at Morse Code (which is still as
popular as ever), or even connect their personal computer to the
world wide radio network (packet radio). This list is
far from exhaustive.

In addition, there is the issue of the ageing
amateur population, and the relatively low intake of younger
people into the ranks. Even in the short 10 years I've been
active on air, I've noticed a significant decline in on air
activity on the local repeaters, and if this trend continues,
then the authorities are quite justified in selling our bands
away to companies that can make better use of them (which is the
last thing I want to see happen! :-( ). Unless something changes,
it could be that the only "contacts" I have in my
retirement years, still a few decades away, will be by telephone
(videophone?), or some gadget that runs over the Internet, such
as a descendent of current voice over IP software, and the only
"radio" I'd ever transmit on would be a mobile phone or
an electronic key for the car or house! Hardly an attractive
scenario.

What can
we do?

Firstly, let's look at the problem. Why is
Amateur Radio in decline? I can see a couple of reasons. When I
was growing up in the 1970's - early 1980's, radio was still a
novelty to kids, and "walkie talkies" were a popular
toy, or the more traditional building of crystal sets (I built my
first one when I was 10) which sometimes led to a lifelong
interest in radio. At the time, the CB boom had hit, so anyone
looking for something "better" than CB could sit for
their licence and become an amateur. I remember looking longingly
in the data section of Dick Smith catalogues at all the amateur
bands and dreaming of one day operating there myself (as you'd
have gathered by now, I've achieved that goal :) ). Today, it's a
different story. Most households have a "2 way radio"
capable of global communications, in the form of a mobile phone.
Computers are now the favourite "tinker toy" for most
technically inclined kids, and there are now so many less
educational distractions competing for the modern youngster's
attention (can anyone say "Sony" or
"Nintendo"? :) ). Within the existing amateur
population, there have been many changes. Equipment has changed
from home brewed to sophisticated commercially built radios which
offer more features than any amateur could be expected to
duplicate. Unfortunately, I also suspect this has significantly
slowed the rate of technical innovation by amateurs as a whole (I
know there are still some hacking away, but they seem to be a
minority). By contrast, the computer movement is seeing an
increasing number of individuals doing interesting things,
especially with software, the most notable achievement being the Linux operating system, which was conceived by Linus
Torvalds, a university student, and has seen input from many
thousands of people around the world (I'm about to beta test a
new Linux patch myself that someone has modified in response to
my request).

Compared to the sophisticated computer
technology in many homes, the typical commercially built amateur
radio still seems a simple device. Except for the refinements of
microprocessor control, digital signal processing and phase lock
loop synthesis (and improvements in the analogue circuitry), they
are still basically the same old analogue transmitters and
receivers that amateurs once built decades ago out of valves,
right down to the superheterodyne design of receivers typically
used for the last several decades.

I, myself fall between these generations. Old
enough to have been bitten by the radio bug, but still young
enough to get into the computer scene, which was one of the
factors responsible for me being inactive for a few years (I'm
active on air now, and enjoying the radio again :) ). I also work
professionally within the computer industry. Through my
"mixed" heritage, I can a potential growth avenue for
amateur radio - high performance digital networks. Before you say
"We don't want faster packet!", keep in mind that
digital data could be _anything_, from this web page and terminal
sessions, to digitised voice, or even video. Such a network could
span the world, via amateur satellites and Internet 'wormholes',
and existing low speed digital or analog systems, such as packet
BBSs or voice repeaters could be linked into the new network.
Imagine pulling out the trusty old handheld while on a train,
punching a few keys and calling an old amateur friend across the
country or on the other side of the world!

An experience several years back stands as
testimony to the interest and excitement this sort of
connectivity could provide. I used to travel by train to Uni.,
which took over an hour. As I was very active at the time, it was
the rule, rather than the exception that I pulled out the radio
and had a ragchew to whoever was on the local repeaters. On this
morning, a week or so before Jamboree On The Air, satellite links
were being tested and made available for amateurs to use, and the
VK3RGL repeater was linked to the New Zealand UHF backbone via
one of the then Aussat communications satellites. These links
were very popular, but once the ZL's discovered I was on a train,
well, I was stuck on the repeater until I lost the signal nearly
an hour later, despite repeated attempts to hand the channel to
others waiting in line! Suddenly the "ho hum" of
repeater ragchewing became something out of the ordinary on both
sides of the Tasman Sea. Amateurs could lead the way in high
speed digital radio technology, which is still a developing
field, and provide permanent, amateur designed and operated links
as part of an integrated digital network, instead of the
temporary, commercially sponsored satellite I spoke on.

If anyone is wondering how this could help
revitalise amateur radio, look at the following possible follow
on effects:

The "wow" factor. Even today's
Internet surfing kids would be impressed with file
transfers and amateur web sites operating in the
megabit/second range. Beats a 56k modem, and no charges
or parents saying "Get off the phone!"

The technical expertise required to build
such a network lies largely in the fields of software
development and digital networking hardware, with some
advanced radio design thrown in. This mix should prove
more exciting to the young computer "hackers"
out there. Armed with a Linux based system, they could
cut code and tinker to their heart's content. As someone
whose career got off the ground through computer hobby
pursuits, I can see career benefits as well, and there's
nothing more satisfying than a career based on one's
interests.

In a sparsely populated country such as
Australia, the network would vastly increase the
accessibility of distant facilities (repeaters, BBSs,
etc) to more amateurs, especially in regional and
isolated areas, leading to more contacts and band use.

To provide the extremely high data rates
the digital network requires would mean opening up the
currently under utilised UHF and microwave amateur bands.
This higher band occupancy, as well as the technical
contribution Amateur Radio could provide to radio in
general would be good reason for our spectrum space to be
preserved. "Use it or lose it", in other words.
The microwave bands are ideal for medium to long haul
(multihop) backbone links. 802.11b looks like a promising
foundation for building high speed links and also recruiting new amateurs
from the ranks of wireless network experimenters, who have both an
interest and expertise in technical areas.

With LIPDs a reality on 70cm today, and
the likelihood of shared amateur/commercial band segments
in the future, the use of spread spectrum data in these
bands could go a long way to allowing these conflicting
services to peacefully co-exist. A 25 mW LIPD would be
truly "low interference" to an amateur spread
spectrum signal, and the reverse would largely hold true
- the low power/unit bandwidth of spread spectrum would
cause less disruption to LIPDs. Use of these
"sharing friendly" arrangements would also
demonstrate that we can adapt to the challenge of
spectrum scarcity, and be good electromagnetic neighbours
in the increasingly crowded bands.

The challenge is to get our act together and
co-operate to advance amateur radio into the 21st Century, and
restore its position as an exciting, leading edge technical hobby
with many spin off benefits, both personally and in the art of
radio, and to make it relevant in the digital age we currently
live in. This challenge lies in many areas, such as sharing the
development work, co-ordinating the system, and most important of
all, attracting new amateurs with new ideas and skills into the
fray, to carry the hobby into the future. If Linus and the many
GNU/Linux code hackers managed to create a world class operating
system, why can't we build a world class radio network?

The only thing certain (besides death and taxes
:) ) in this world is change. It's up to us to adapt to the
changes, or go the way of the dinosaur. Every threat is also an
opportunity, if approached from a different angle. The computer
revolution that threatens to make Amateur Radio irrelevant also
promises to provide new avenues of growth. And such growth need
not mean the loss of something we currently enjoy. For example,
packet radio, RTTY and the shack bound PC haven't meant the
demise of Morse Code. If anything, they've either had little
effect, or enhanced it in some ways. This page, in itself, is an
attempt to use the Internet to the advantage of Amateur Radio, by
making it available for as many people as possible to read.